Close to 30 people are on a 15-day trek from Edmonton to Calgary, to unite Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of different backgrounds with the goal of building relationships and engaging in meaningful conversations.
The Walk For Common Ground started Friday. Over the course of the journey, participants will be making stops at churches, schools and union halls.
On Monday, on the side of a rural road near Millet, Alta., participants walked in two lines led by carriers of walking sticks, which have eagle feathers dangling from them.
At one point, the feathers fly off the staff onto the road, bringing the walk to a halt. The walkers yell for an Indigenous member to help with an emergency smudge, before the sacred feathers can be picked up.
The wind blows along the highway, as other members of the group surround the impromptu ceremony with signs, so the sweetgrass can be ignited. The walkers patiently wait for the feathers to be cleansed before they continue on.
On this day, the group started at Griffiths-Scott School In Millet before ending the day at a church in Wetaskiwin, Alta.
Pat Makokis participated in a pilgrimage walk with non-Indigenous people in Ontario in 2017. The experience left her wanting to have a similar event in Alberta.
She’s a coordinator with the walk, but also works as a professor of Indigenous community-industry relations at the University of Alberta.
Makokis worked with Scott MacDougall, a mental health therapist and member of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta to bring together the walking group that consists of health practitioners, faith leaders, junior high students and Indigenous community members.
Through the course of the journey, the group will engage in conversation about Indigenous history in Canada and the experiences of modern Indigenous people. Makosis stresses education as an important part of the event.
“We need to take a serious look at history. We need to understand the colonial history, the oppression and how it rolls out in terms for example of health for Indigenous people,” Makokis said.
“We we are plagued by very deep misunderstandings and trauma. All of those things can be overcome by us educating each other, and coming together.”
MacDougall, wanted health-care professionals to be involved because he says they’re on the front line of seeing social issues that Indigenous people face, which ultimately will have an impact on their health.
“Ongoing poverty, ongoing lack of clean water, ongoing compromise in education systems, and other things,” MacDougall said. “Just the fact that the standards most non-Indigenous communities would not find acceptable continue to be part of what we notice in reserve communities still today.”
On Tuesday the group will continue their trek, starting in Wetaskiwin before walking 16 kilometres toward Maskwacis. They’re expected to finish the trip in Calgary on June 14.